Ackerman Exit Boosts Faleomavaega

The unexpected retirement of Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY) moves Faleomavaega a step closer to his dream of one day chairing the full House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Last year we wrote that, in the wake of congressional redistricting, a “perfect storm” might develop that would catapult the traveling delegate into the panel’s top slot. In order for Faleomavaega to succeed, two more senior members of the committee would need to leave Congress, Democrats would need to recapture control of the House and Nancy Pelosi would need to approve the unprecedented step of elevating into a full committee chairmanship a non-voting delegate from a small territory.

Moreover, in so doing, she would be handing the gavel to someone who has been a loose cannon over the course of his House tenure. At a time of great, sensitive, international issues, it is doubted that an outspoken House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman would be welcome by a White House controlled by either party. Many of Faleomavaega’s antics are recounted elsewhere in this blog but just to give an example, after the killing of Osama Bin Laden Faleomavaega rose up on the House floor to demand that President Obama and then-CIA Director Leon Panetta apologize to native Americans for using “Geronimo” as a code word in the operation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7tPMvDTx-w&noredirect=1. Needless to say, he was ignored. Many think he is nuts.

When the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) was riding high with lobbyist Jack Abramoff blocking Congressional efforts to curb labor abuses and raise wages in those islands, island leaders believed they had all the protection they needed. Abramoff was a well connected lobbyist with enormous influence over powerful Republicans who had say over the issues. The chief detractor in the House from his days as Chairman and later Ranking Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee—which has jurisdiction over insular issues—was Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and Abramoff for years routinely rubbed Miller’s nose in the dirt over the Marianas.

In order for the situation to turn sour for the CNMI, another “perfect storm” would need to come together. As long as Abramoff continued to ride high, the Republicans remained in power in the House and Miller was not involved in the issues at hand, all would be well. And so it looked in early 2005 after George W. Bush was returned to office and Miller left the top ranking slot on Natural Resources for the same position on the Education and Labor Committee.

But Hurricane Katrina came along and the voters took it out on Republicans in mid-term elections, sweeping the Democrats back into control of the House and making Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) the speaker. Her closest confidant in the House was none other than fellow San Francisco Democrat Miller, who became chairman of the Education and Labor Committee.

A year before the midterm, CNMI voters elected as governor Benigno Fitial, the chief defender of the Abramoff strategy and the new CNMI House installed as speaker former governor Froilan Tenorio, the man who had hired Abramoff in the first place. While that was happening, Abramoff’s lobbying empire was beginning to unravel. So, by Christmas 2006, the Republican majority was on its way out, Bush was gravely weakened by Katrina and Iraq, and Miller, with a long memory of how he was batted about by Abramoff and those behind him on Saipan, was coming into the chairmanship of the committee that had jurisdiction over minimum wage.

All the elements of the perfect storm were in place and within days of taking control of the House, Miller offered a bill (H.R. 2) to apply federal minimum wage to the CNMI. When is sailed through Congress, a weakened Bush meekly signed it. So, as unlikely as all of those pieces coming together might have seemed in early 2005, they all indeed came together just two years later and the rest is history.

Something similar would have to happen for Faleomavaega to become Committee chairman. It seemed inconceivable a year go with Republicans having swept into power with the largest majority they had enjoyed since the 1920s and the two Democrats ahead of Faleomavaega showing no sign of getting out of the way any time soon.

However, as we pointed out in our earlier blog, this is a redistricting year and all the congressional boundaries are being redrawn to account for population shifts. Both Ackerman and Berman had been through this process in the past and had weathered redistricting well thanks to friendly legislatures drawing new lines favorable to incumbents.

But the prefect storm began to build as California adopted a new redistricting system conducted by an independent, non-partisan commission rather than the Democrat-controlled legislature. Meanwhile in New York, Republicans won control of the state senate, which meant compromise would be necessary in drawing the lines, which had to account for the loss of two seats. The compromise was that one Republican seat in upstate New York and one in the New York City metropolitan area would be eliminated.

California’s new map threw Berman into a district with his colleague Brad Sherman (D) and they are in a survival struggle that will be playing out in the state primary in June. The winner is almost assured victory in November. At the same time, while New York eliminated Ackerman’s district, it created an open safe seat nearby to which he could have moved easily. It seemed certain he would do so until his surprise announcement yesterday that he would retire rather than have to face an almost entirely new set of constituents.

So, Ackerman is gone and Berman could be defeated in June. Meanwhile, Democrats have growing optimism that they can win back the House in November. If that whole perfect storm comes together, the only obstacle remaining for Faleomavaega, assuming he wins his own re-election, would be to win Pelosi’s backing to become chairman.

People in Washington’s foreign affairs interest community should be alarmed at the prospect of a Faleomavaega chairmanship. Be afraid; be very, very afraid. What they should be doing is massing campaign contributions to try to save Berman, defeat Faleomavaega, try to influence Pelosi and try to shore up the Republican majority. The cheapest way to solve the problem is to defeat Faleomavaega but at this juncture, no viable candidate has stepped forward to oppose him.

As hard as it may be to believe, particularly given his Faleomavaega’s penchant for bomb throwing, he has never really been vetted or profiled by the mainstream press, even though he did have a four-year stint as the Asia-Pacific subcommittee chairman. It is true that Foreign Affairs is not considered a major committee in the House and the Asia-Pacific panel is one of the least important on the Committee, but it still is surprising so little is known about this man and where he would take the committee if he took charge.

While making contributions to various campaigns to minimize negative outcomes, someone ought to encourage the international affairs media to do an in-depth profile of Faleomavaega in hopes of persuading a potential incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi to think twice before handing him the gavel.

For his part Faleomavaega continues on his merry way, again last week visiting Fiji. There does not appear to be a dictator, tyrant, despot, autocrat or strongman that Faleomavaega does not like. In recent years he has shown a particular fondness for the rulers of Bahrain, Kazakhstan and Fiji. Precisely what he thought he was accomplishing on this trip to Fiji is unclear but just days after his departure strongman Bainimarama announced the abolishment of the Great Council of Chiefs. Any relationship? Hard to say but Faleomavaega in the past has proposed election of members of the American Samoa Senate, which is a body composed of traditional leaders selected by county chiefs. You can draw your own conclusions.

Faleomavaega Partly to Blame for Tucson Tragedy

Although we are not aware of any public statements Faleomavaega may have made following the Tuscon shooting that took six lives, he nonetheless has to shoulder part of the blame for the tragedy.  For it is the left wing of the Democrat Party, of which he is a proud member, that has forced the "mainstreaming" of so many mentally ill persons who a generation ago would have been receiving in-patient treatment at secure facilities.  Shame on him for such an ill conceived policy.

Although he is the senior Democrat in Congress involved in Asian affairs, President Obama passed him over when extending invitations for last week's dinner honoring Chinese President Hu, just as he was snubbed for the state dinner for the leader of India, even though he long has been a congressional champion of U.S.-Indian relations.  We hoped he enjoyed his consolation prizes: a ride to Washington from Hawaii on Air Force One and an  invitation to have lunch with Hu a day after the lavish State Dinner.

In fact, the presidential plane ride may be the high point of Eni's year.  Since his return to minority status in the House, Eni has watched himself stripped of his chairmanship and stripped of his vote in the Committee of the Whole.  Moreover, Republicans have slashed five percent from his office budget and new restrictions have been placed on congressional travel.   In many ways, as a non-voting delegate, he is lower on the totem pole than the nine new Democrats who were elected to the House.  He may have a nicer office than they do because of his seniority but that's about all.  If you want to see what it's like to be a new member in the minority, just read this article:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/03/AR2011010305462_2.html?sid=ST2011010305630.

Meanwhile, in the wake of Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie's failure to find Barack Obama's legitimate birth certificate, questions are being asked anew about Faleomavaega's role in covering up Obama's past.  One such article his here: http://debsimonforcongress.blogspot.com/2011/01/january-14-16-2011-obamas-grandparents.html.   Perhaps the Obama plane ride was to assure Faleomavaega's continued silence about the real purpose of his trip to Indonesia.

Faleomavaega also figured in the Wikileaks diplomatic document dump.   One classified cable generated by the U.S. embassy in New Zealand said "Bainimarama asked Australia and New Zealand to drop their demands for 2009 elections, and called on the other PIF states to not listen to Australia and New Zealand.  He also credited U.S. Representative Eni Faleomavaega with having a better understanding of the situation in Samoa and that Faleomavaega's views, rather than those of Australia and New Zealand, should form the basis of USG policy towards Fiji."   Even if he isn't as welcome in Washington these days, at least Eni seems to continue to have a fan in Fiji's dictator.

Since he is virtually useless in Washington now, our betting is that Eni will find a way around the travel restrictions and be back on the road as soon as he can.  Nothing for him to do in DC and besides, now that his floor vote has been taken away, he won't have to worry about being exposed, as he was last term, as the Member of Congress to miss the most votes (41%).  Of course, don't expcect the territory's leading newspaper, Samoa News, to cover any of this.  His sister-in-law continues to be one of the small group of editors of the paper.  And so it goes.



 

Communist Group Credits Faleomavaega

Saying “His call for Washington to assert its own position on Fiji and other regional matters now appears to have received a favorable hearing in the State Department,” the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), through its official World Socialist Website, has credited American Samoa congressional Delegate Eni Faleomavaega with playing the key role in changing the U.S. government’s position on dealing with the Fiji dictatorship.

The ICFI is the international Communist organization that follows the Marxist teachings of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, a leading rival to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin until Stalin had him assassinated in 1940. Although Faleomavaega was for years a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, from its inception in 1991 until he quietly dropped out when his membership threatened to become a campaign issue earlier this decade, and the caucus has ties with Democratic Socialists of America, it is unclear what ties, if any, Faleomavaega may have with the ICFI or other Trotskyite organizations.

Nonetheless, in addition to his vigorous defense of Fiji military dictator Commodore Frank Bainamarama, Faleomavaega also has been cozy with autocratic leaders in Kazkhstan, Laos and Vietnam, the last where he praised Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi a couple of years ago.

As evidence of the shift in U.S. policy, the ICFI in the article points to

• Obama recently issuing a personal statement marking the 40th anniversary of Fijian independence;

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton including the Fiji Foreign Minister in an hour-long meeting in New York with senior Pacific leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in later September;

• Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell’s testifying before Faleomavaega’s subcommittee that “Our objective is to put Fiji back on track for . . . elections no later than 2014,” tantamount to endorsing a timetable which now puts “Washington . . . at odds with Canberra on this question:”

• the U.S. recently announcing it will re-establish an AID mission in Suva after a 15-year absence;

• State Department opening a new multi-million dollar regional embassy in Suva;

• The U.S. government issuing no comment on the arrest of former Prime Minister and current Labour Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry, “on spurious charges of breaking an emergency decree . . .”

Faleomavaega no doubt approves of all these developments. At the hearing at which Campbell testified, he said “Clearly, the Australian and New Zealand policy of sanctions and isolating and punishing Fiji has not only failed but totally been counterproductive. For too long we effectively outsourced our policymaking toward the Pacific Islands to Australia and New Zealand. “

“Unfortunately,” he continued, “the sometimes imperious attitudes and actions of our friends in Canberra and Wellington toward the Pacific Islands have fostered a degree of resentment and distrust that has limited their influence as well as their ability to represent US views and interests . . . By deferring to the foreign ministries of Canberra and Wellington, we left a vacuum in the Pacific that China has been only too eager to fill.”

Given Faleomavaega’s closeness to Communist China in recent years, it is unclear why he is expressing concern about China’s activities in the Pacific and the article in this publication sheds no light on that.

Election time again

Well folks, it's election time again, so we are opening up our survey to give you a chance to choose who you prefer to replace Faleomavaega as delegate to Congress. The choices this year are Aumua Amata begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting, who has contested the seat several times in the past and Tuika Tuika, Jr., who has run for congress once before.

The good news for a lot of governments around the world is that they are safe from Eni's wrath for three weeks while he confines himself to the territory to face the voters. So, he will have to put aside his two main, seemingly contradictory preoccupations: coddling dictators and championing the oppressed. In the former categories are such people as Frank Bainamarama (Fiji), Nursultan Nazarbayev (Kazakhstan), the late Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) and Bouasone Bouphavanh (Laos). The oppressed people include West Papua's Melanesians, French Polynesian separatists, Armenians, Koren comfort women, Cambodian Agent Orange sufferers, Native Hawaiians, American Indians on reservations and low-wage cannery workers.

The only place where he has had any impact, as far as we can tell, is with the low wage cannery workers. He fought for and won for them an increase in the minimum wage, forcing one cannery to close and the other to downsize, so that now he can champion a new group: the no-wage ex-cannery workers. Atta boy, Eni, way to go in your never-ending search for "social justice."

The good news for Eni is that if he wins again, he is likely to have a whole lot more time to devote to his pet causes because if Republicans take control of Congress, as many analysts now believe they will, he won't need to show up in Washington every once in a while to chair hearings or cast committee votes at the direction of his party to give cover to real members. As was the case for the 12 years Republicans controlled the House between 1995 and 2007, he will be largely irrelevant as a member of the minority. Even though Republicans will control travel budgets, they do like to have Democrats on their fact-finding delegations abroad to show "bipartisanship," and Eni has proved useful for that purpose because he never refuses a trip he is offered.

He seems to have adopted a strategy of flying under the radar this election, as he made no formal announcement of his candidacy, just quietly filing his petitions to activate his candidacy. And he can count on Samoa News, where his sister-in-law is one of the editors, to play his little game of keeping controversy out of print. There are only 22 days left in the campaign and so far there have been exactly NO stories in the paper about the campaign. The candidates each made the first of their customary television presentations last week and Samoa News did not even bother to cover them. nor have any of the media taken the simple step of going on-line to the Federal Election Committee website to see how much money has been raised any from whom. Virtually every other newspaper in the country does this for their local congressional races but apparently not Samoa News. Maybe his sister-in-law won't like what she sees: massive contributions from people with Asian names with addresses in the U.S. No one seems to care or wonder why all these people would be so interested in a congressional race on a small, remote Pacific Island. As long as the voters are fed on Election Day, why bother, I suppose?

Eni and the dictator

In a post headlines "Coup Supporter Eni Faleomaega Way off the Mark AGAIN," well respected Fijian blogger Sai Lealea systematically picks apart Faleomavaega's lengthy rebuttal to former Fiji Times Editor Russell Hunter's criticism of Faleomavaega's support for the Bainimarama regime. THe blog contains a photo of the smiling congressman and the dictator arm in arm in Suva. Faleomavaega boasts that he has made four trips to Fiji this year so far, which probably exceeds the number of trips he has made to American Samoa. You can read Eni's full response to Hunter's commentary, which was published in the Samoa observer, here: http://wwwfijicoup2006.blogspot.com/2010/09/coup-supporter-eni-faleomaega-way-off.html

The man is so arrogantly confident of his re-election that he did not even bother to announce he was running again this year. He simply filed his papers.

FALEOMAVAEGA DEFENDS KAZAHKSTAN, FIJI DICTATORS

On the Eurasianet.org website, Joshua Kucera wrote that at a recent hearing of the U.S. Helsinki Commission marking Kazahkstan’s assumption of the rotating presidency of OSCE, Faleomavaega said Kazakhstan’s recent human rights record should be seen in the context of the country’s decision to give up the nuclear weapons it inherited from the Soviet Union. "While human rights groups continue to point fingers at Kazakhstan, I submit that only Kazakhstan had the moral courage to renounce nuclear weapons altogether for the sake of all mankind." He said Faleomavaega also noted that Kazakhstan public opinion polls showed a high level of support for the United States. "This is a direct result of President Nazarbayev’s leadership and commitment in the service of his people." The website Kazakhstan Today reported in 2006 that at a Washington dinner honoring Nazarbayev, Faleomavaega said "I consider that the President of Kazakhstan deserves to receive the Nobel Prize for his contribution to cause of peace on the Earth."

Kucera quoted Erica Marat, a political analyst who was in attendance, as saying the hearing was a "missed opportunity [in which] Kazakhstan’s leadership was once again given soft treatment for failing to fulfill the promises the government made at the OSCE Madrid conference in 2007. Because there was little attention paid to the more substantive issues Kazakhstan is facing today, the entire hearing was of little value. It just served to help Kazakhstan’s campaign for a better international image."

Noted Kucera: one member of the Helsinki Commission, Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), referred to Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record in his written comments: "Given the distinctive focus of the Helsinki Commission on democracy, human rights and the rule of law, I would be remiss not to note that Kazakhstan is the first country assessed as "not free" by Freedom House to assume the OSCE chairmanship."

Meanwhile, the Epoch Times wrote that “Fiji’s interim prime minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, announced that democratic elections are still planned for 2014, but any elected government will follow the military’s plan for Fiji’s future. The leader says his aim to establish a multicultural nation has some support, but his methods of achieving it have been raising concerns amid democratic nations. Bainimarama, who took over the country during a 2006 military coup, plans for the military to oversee any newly elected Fijian government, ensuring continued military authority over a wide range of institutions, such as the Great Council of Chiefs and the Methodist Church. The former naval officer has exhibited few democratic principles so far, while exiling some of his critics and gagging local dissent, including the media.”

Nonetheless, the Times quoted Falomavaega as saying “Bainimarama has made it clear that he intends to draft a constitution that will reflect the country’s unique culture and history. He has also promised to enact electoral reforms that will establish equal suffrage and to hold free, fair, and democratic elections,” which the Times called “a surprising display of support last year. The Times also quoted Amnesty International’s Pacific researcher Apolosi Bose as saying “With Fiji cracking down even harder on its own people, this is not the time for New Zealand and other countries in the region to back down from their strong stance. They must intensify their calls for Fiji to immediately halt arbitrary arrests, intimidation, threats, assaults and detention of critics of the regime.”

In an opinion piece for Fairfax News, Faleomavaega says sanctions have not been helpful. “Canberra and Washington have employed heavy-handed tactics and misguided sanctions that have hurt average Fijians far more than the interim government at which they were targeted,” he wrote. “Foreign policy elites in Australia and New Zealand erroneously view the region with a Eurocentric mentality without having a better sense of appreciation of Fiji’s colonial history.”

It seems this must be Faleomavaega’s “balanced approach” to foreign policy: if you are going to be an apologist for the left wing dictator of Kazahkstan, you also should do the same for the right wing dictator in Fiji.